dreamvision .

So last night I had two of the coolest dreams ever and amazingly enough I must have woken up in the middle of both of them, and thus remember pretty much the entirety of both! I figured I'd jot them down... both for personal amusement and perhaps reader entertainment

The first dream was about biking. It was my very first road race, and I finally had my brand new bike with all of my brand new gear that I had just bought (these are things that actually happened in real life... with the exception of being in a road race). Ryan Newman was there (a friend who is a pro cyclist) and I was stoked to be able to ride with the best. We started out and I was doing great, Ryan and I were using drafting techniques to pull to the front of the pack.

Then we hit the first climb. In the dream it pretty much looked like the road to a turn straight up into the sky. It was pure insanity. I tried so hard to get up the hill, and moved down what seemed like a bajillion gears but I couldn't make it all the way up on my bike. I hopped off and jogged and rolled my bike over the top, which normally would be impossible given the rigidity and slippery-ness of cycling shoes, only to discover that at the top it dropped off for about 10ft as if it was jump! Of course I was able to land somehow without anything getting damaged (me or my bike).

Then there was the downhill part. There were times when I was only inches from the edge, and it felt like you could see the whole world from there. But then towards the bottom for some reason it started to get muddy. I was so confused. Wasn't this supposed to be a road race? Well there was a spot where everyone was parking their bikes and literally just running through the ridiculousness of an extreme dirt/mud trail that had rivers roaring through it and some incredible climbs. I didn't know what to do except jump off my bike and leave it there!

I was exhausted, and this was only the first lap of 2. On the flat dirt stretch that led back towards the start line, my lungs were burning and I could barely keep myself going. Upon getting there, everyone was getting back on bikes! Not sure what was happening, I asked someone frantically what was going on. Apparently team cars were supposed to bring the bikes back to the start so you could ride them again. I searched as fast as I could for mine, but it was not to be found. I also had somehow misplaced my helmet and my gloves, not to mention broken my pair of cycling sunglasses, all of which is brand new (in real life).

Somehow though, my mountain bike was there. It was not in great condition, but rideable. I was complaining to Ryan that I didn't have a bike and it wasn't there and no one had brought it back over. He shrugged and kept moving.

For some reason there was a pause at the start line, and I had about 10 minutes to get there for the second lap. My mountain bike would have to suffice. Somehow I got some team's gear, a helmet and gloves. But the helmet wasn't comfortable, and I couldn't get the stinkin' gloves on. It was horrible and I was losing so much time. Though once the second lap started, I began to make up some time. My mountain bike was a lot better in the mud and dirt than the road bikes of the others, and so I didn't have to jump off and carry my bike through stuff.

I can't remember how this dream ended, but the last thing I remember before I woke up is riding through small streams and up muddy hills on my mountain bike... pretty wild stuff.

*    *    *

The second dream began as one dream and merged into two. Part of it, I had originally had some time ago, that I remember having before.

I was driving on the highway, home from someone's house. It was a sunny day and the roads wound their way through the mountains, so it was pretty. I knew I had to turn from the road I was on and merge onto Highway 416 (pretty sure that's not a real highway, it's just what was in the dream), but wasn't sure of any sort of directions after that. Once I merged, the dream becomes blurry for me, and I end up at some sort of parking lot in a really sketchy town. My truck had been parked and I was inside some sort of school facility. Lost and confused, and began to wander. Everything in the school was off, and it had become pitch dark. The rain, thunder and lightning started, and I made my way through whatever way I thought would lead me out, hoping that I could just get back to the car and try to leave.

I remember passing by a gym of some sort, and it was huge, with big skylights, and it looked uncannily like my high school's gym (in real life). I finally found my way out and ended up running into some people from my youth group in real life. They needed to get home, and I was supposed to take them. So maybe that's what I was doing there in that ridiculously sketchy town.

We began walking away from the school, the rain coming down harder, but not overwhelmingly. I pulled my hood-less jacket up around my head a bit to shield myself from the precipitation. I had seemed to remember the way I had walked from the car to get to the school (despite the fact that that scenario had not existed in the dream itself) and also recalled the same area from a previous dream. I mean that in the sense that I seemed to know where I was going, despite the fact that I was lost there. Because that makes total sense....

The girls walked behind me and we wandered up a long hill, with naught but streetlights to guide our way. The town seemed to be devoid of traffic, and all that was there was us and the rain. Getting to the top of the hill, we could see the school at the bottom, and I recalled that to the right of where I was standing, and partially down the hill, there was a sort of parking lot with chain-link fence around it. This was where I had parked. We walked in that direction, now making a sort of triangle if you traced our steps, and sure enough, I saw it. The lone red truck sat in a parking space in the middle of the long rectangular lot, and there was one light that shone near it, that gave just enough brightness to hint that it's color was burgundy. We had found it.

[At this point, scenes sort of skip each other in the dream, and the next thing that happens is that I am back in that school, on a Saturday morning, playing volleyball. So what I describe next happens with that preface.]

I sat on the bleachers that were rolled out, watching the team practice. The coach was strict, but I had had strict coaches too. They just demand a lot from you, and even if it's hard you'll feel so much better later on having pushed yourself. The morning reminded me of the occasional practices we had had for baseball if it was an easy indoor day. Sometimes we'd do batting practice with tennis balls, or play a sort of home-run game.

All of the balls that the team was using were orange and white, with some special ones that were light blue and white. The gym mimicked those colors, with the exception of having no blue but from the color of the morning sky dancing through the skylights.

And all of a sudden, I was a part of it. The team, on the the floor. They weren't really doing any sort of particular drill, just practicing the setup for the sorts of returns they wanted. I was never really a lebarro, but I sort of took the initiative to take that position. The first few that came towards me I had to completely lay out for, sliding along the floor. I smiled as I recalled the same sorts of scenarios at college where I played lots of pickup volleyball. People always laughed because I took it so seriously and tried so hard. But I think deep down they appreciated it.

Coach was hard on us, but it was still good to play again. It had been so long since I last played. We volleyed back and forth for a while, practicing digs and sets and bumps. The dream ended right after I had served my first ball, and since no one else jump served Coach was surprised and let me know that it could potentially be good, as long as I practice a lot and got it down pat. At that point, I woke up.



Well, that was pretty much a forever-long post. I woke up and was amazed to have both of these stories still in my head, and in such vivid detail too. So if you made it this far, congratulations, you must be a die-hard fan of my blogs... I'll be back with a new (and most likely shorter) post tomorrow.